67S 




Boole Jt 7f4 



Horace 




's Views on Virginia, 



ANI> 



*c» 



WHAT HE KNOWS ABOUT THE SOUTH— SLAVE-BREED- 
ING — MIXED SCHOOLS— MISCEGENATION — MAKING 
SECTIONAL WAR— KANSAS AND THE SOUTH— 
FAVORING SECESSION— LETTING "THE ERR- 
ING SISTERS GO"-CONFISCATION, RAPINE, 
AND RAVAGE— SLAVE INSURRECTIOJ 
—SUPPORTING GENERAL BUTLEF 
NEW ORLEANS ORDER— THE KU 
KLUX TRIALS, &c, &c, &o. 



When Mr. Greeley wrote his account of 
"The American Conflict," he stated in the 
preface that he had made frequent and copi- 
ous citations from letters and other docu- 
ments, because he "could only thus present 
the views of political antagonists In terms 
which they must recognize and respect as 
authentic." He also declared that history is 
recorded in the journals of our country more 
fully than elsewhere. It may then be as- 
sumed that the autheetie views of Mr. Gree- 
ley are to be found in the editorial columns 
of the New York Tribune, over which he 
had entire control, from the establishment of 
the paper, in 1851, until after his nomination 
at Cincinnati, and in which he invariably re- 
pudiated any statement which he was un- 
willing to indorse that had found its way 
into the columns for which he held himself 
responsible. The following extracts from 
the editorial columns of the Tribune must, 
consequently, be regarded as accurate and 
fair statements of Mr. Greeley's views. Mr. 
Greeley appears to have had an especial 
antipathy toward Virginia, as displayed in 
articles like the following: 

"There stands the South-look at her! 
Virgmia, the birthplace of Washington, sank 



to the level of a mere negro- breeding terri- 
tory, and those slaves the most valuable that 
have the largest mixture of the blood of the 
nrst families. Gentlemen of Virginia are 
now engaged in rearing mulattoes to be sold 
and hunted by blood-hounds as above pro- 
fessionally advertised. A white ruffian buys 
slaves within a stone's throw of Mount Ver- 
non or Monticeilo for a few hundred dollars 
and then further South hires them out or 
employs them, living on their labor, taking 
their earnings from them by force like a cow? 
ardly footpad; disporting his aristocracy at 
the springs in the summer, and rejoicing in 
some shabby title of major, colonel or gen- 
eral—and this is American Democracy. 

" This system, which is only upheld bv 
one hundred and fifteen thousand slave- 
owners—the odd eight hundred thousand or 
one million of adult male whites h the South 
not owning slaves— must not oniy be ac- 
cepted and approved by the mechanics and 
laborers of the North, but we must consent 
and assist in its extension and perpetuation 
It must be the shibboleth of all political en- 
joyment and aspiration; of present advan- 
^ ge , 2P d futl,r e glory."— From ths Km 
York Iribune of March 7, 1854. 

MIXED SCHOOLS. 

Mr. Greeley's sympathy for the colored 
people is not to be wondered at, as it appears 
from the following article, addressed to the 
editor of a Virginia paper, that he went to 



Eds' 



school with black children, sat on the same 
bench and recited in the same class with 
them: 

"We have already assured the Virginian 
that the editor of this journal went to the 
same common school with black children, 
not for a few days, but for three winters; sat 
on the same bench, and recited in the same 
classes with them, and received no possible 
damage therefrom. Why not take notice of 
this assurance? And we know of no rural 
school district in New England from whose 
school colored children are excluded. "—From 
the JY. Y. Tribune, of January 16, 1872. 

SOCIAL EQUALITY AND AMALGAMATION. 

Mr. Greeley has not only advocated "equal- 
ity before the law," but he has virtually ar- 
rayed himself as a champion of "social equal- 
ity" and of "miscegenation," as the follow- 
ing extracts show. They are in plain Eng- 
lish, and can not be misunderstood: 

"A raan proud of his purse may scorn a 
poor negro as he would a poor white man. 
A man systematically acquiescent in the 
wrongs and cruelties of society may 9hun a 
negro as he would any unpopular white. A 
man who has himself been underestimated, 
may be jealous of any attempt to do justice 
to others. But we must insist that all this 
settles nothing except our human inhuman- 
ity—except that in spite of our religious pro- 
fessions we do not dwell together as breth- 
ren, except that we donOt, in spite of our 
Bibles, believe that God has made all men of 
one blood. 

"It is hard to decide how long this preju- 
dice may continue to influence society; and 
it wiil probably continue to be felt long after 
all traces of it have disappeared from the 
statute books of all the States. But this thing 
is certainly clear— that under the Constitu- 
tion, in its most liberal interpretation, and 
admitting our cherished American doctrine 
of equal human rights, if a white man pleases 
to marry a black woman, the mere fact that 
she is black gives no one a right to interfere 
to prevent or set aside such marriage. We 
do not say that such a union would 'he wise, 
but we do distinctly assert that society has 
nothing to do with the wisdom of matches, 
and that we shall have, to the end of the 
chapter, a great many foolish ones which 
laws are powerless to prevent. We do not 
say that such matches would be moral, but 
wo do declare that they would be infinitely 
more so than the promiscuous concubinage 
which has so long shamelessly prevailed upon 
the Southern plantations. If a man can so 
far conquer his repugnance to a black wo- 
man as to make her the mother of his chil- 
dren, we ask, in the name of the divine law and 
of decency, why he should not marry 
her ? We are not in favor of any law com- 
pelling a Copperhead to marry a negress, un- 
less under circumstances which might com- 
pel him to marry a white woman or go to 
prison; but we insist that if the Copperhead 
or anybody else is anxious to enter into such 
union it is not for the Legislature to forbid 



x79(* 

him, or for his fellow creatures to prontr&nci 
him a violator of the law of nature and God. "— 
From the Mw York Tribune of March 16 
1864. 

" If by 'amalgamation ' is meant the inter- 
mingling of the white and black races, and if 
the question be, 'Do you consider this ad- 
visable or desirable?' our answer is, no, we 
do not. There seems to us a natural repul- 
sion between whites and blacks which may 
indeed be overborne or defied, but which 
must have been implanted for some good end, 
and which we therefore respect and desire to 
see respected. There will generally arise 
quite enough provocations to difference in 
the married state without superadding this 
(it seems to us) natural instinctive repug- 
nance of race. Hence, as a rule, we do not 
think tho intermarriage of Christians with 
Jews advisable; nor that of Roman Catholics 
with Protestants; nor even that of sternly Or. 
thodox with rationalizing Quakers, Unitari- 
ans, and Universalists. 

" We do not say that these differences of 
creed are insuperable bars to marriage, but 
that other things being equal, it were better 
to seek partners for life among those with 
whom you have no essential difference or dis- 
agreement. 

"But if our correspondent means would 
you by law prohibit and punish intermar- 
riages between white and black our answer 
must be, • No, we would not.' Civd law has 
no warrant to interfere in matters of taste. 
We should certainly advise no white man to 
marry a black, but if such a couple were re- 
solved to marry we would interpose no legal 
obstacle, and desire none." — From the JVew 
York tribune of July 31, 1865. 

"The Express feels bad because the Trib- 
une discusses the question of a mixtuire of 
white and black blood, and sees no objection 
to treating a colored woman just as if she 
were white in the matter of seduction, mar- 
riage, &c. The horrible consequences of 
black and white mixture are doubtless fear- 
ful here, but down in Dixie no such qualms 
exist; there the breeding of a brawny and 
salable mulatto boy, or of a saddle-colored 
girl for the brothels of New Orleans, is some- 
thing to brag of; and many such a boy and • 
many such a prostitute boasts the best blood 
of the chivalry. When Kichard M. Johnson 
married a negro and raised a large family by 
her no Democratic stomach revolted. We have 
among us in this city at this very time the 
mulatto daughter of Brigadier General Huger 
and the mulatto son of Brigadier General 
Withers, both the fathers being now in im- 
portant commands in the rebel army— the 
mothers undoubtedly in slavery or the grave. 
We have also recently had slave children 
here much whiter than the editors of the 
Express— fair, blue-eyed children, with bills 
of sale in their pockets. "—From the New 
York Tribune, March 17, 1864. 

" Here is a large number of nearly white 
children, of slave mothers, who have recently 
been, and we presume still are, presented to 
audiences by the Freedmen's Aid Society in 
illustration of the need of effort for the moral 



/ and intellectual improvement of the freed- 
i, men. Several of thorn are well-known chil- 
j dren of rebel generals and statesmen— not 
one is known or believed to have had a Re- 
publicai father. And the fullest inquiry 
and scrutiny will demonstrate incontestably 
the truth that, for every white father of a 
colored child who sympathizes with the 
views of the Tribune there are at least one 
hundred who howl and gnash their teeth 
whenever this journal is named, being Cop- 
perheads on this side of the military lines 
and rank rebels on the other. 

" This truth does not rest upon anti-slavery 
testimony. Whoever will read Chancellor 
Harper's Vindication of Slavery will find 
that he admits the universality of 'miscegena- 
tion ' between the white young men and the 
colored women of the slave States. He rather 
glories in this as less corrupting to the young 
• slaveholders than the illicit intercourse with 
lewd womeu which prevails in non-slave- 
holdinir communities. And a sister of Presi- 
dent Madison once observed, ' We Southern 
wives are but the mistresses of seraglios.' 
We might pile proof on proof of the general 
truth she there asserted; but the topic is un- 
savory, and the fact perfectly notorious. It 
is written broadly on the face of Southern so- 
ciety, especially in the great cities." — From 
theMio York Tribune of March 28, 1864. 

WHAT HE SAID ABOUT FIGHTING IN KANSAS. 

Mr. Greeley had always been a professed 
advocate of peace, yet when the struggle was 
commenced for the possession of Kansas, he 
implored the young men of the North to go 
fefeere and fight the settlers from the South. 

" Let the North furnish men and money, 
settlers, and Sharp's rifles, and these two po- 
litical assassins shall be taught the way of 
liberty better than they have ever yet learned 
that lesson. They accidentally wielded the 
Executive arm of the National Government 
to-dny, but two years hence will see these 
two men subsided to their original spheres — 
the one a second-rate New Hampshire poli- 
tician, the other an ambidexterous, question- 
able citizen of the still old Puritan town of 
Newburyport; their opinions and power just 
equal with that of any two average Yankees 
on the street. Indeed, that the Emigrant 
Aid Society, well backed, is more than a 
match for ail the pro-slavery legislation of 
Congress and all the Kansas messages of the 
Executive to boot. But it must be well 
backed, and we trust 'its backers are aware 
of their elevated agency and ready for the 
discharge of their whole duty. Give us, then, 
men and money, settlers and Sh irp's rifles, 
and let us see if private associate enterprise 
in behalf of liberty is not stronger than the 
combined rascality of every branch of the, 
Government against it." — From the Nexo 
York Tribune of February 1, 1856. 

"Pour into Kansas, brave men and true, 
with your rifles in your hands, and range 
yourselves on the side of the brave men there 
already, who during the past winter, have 
done and suffered so much to maintain their 



rights and yours, the -great rrght^and eaus# 
of all the SIorth-Freedornfor Kansas. 

"Young men full of ardor, enthusiasm-; and 
thirst for action and glory, cow is your timei 
This is no fillibustering expedition, of which 
the object is to rob others. You go only to 
claim your own — your own, guarantee! to 
you by the very provisions of the Kansas- 
Nebraska act itself— your quarter section of 
land and your rights as a sovereign squatter. 
But you go not for yourself alone, you go 
for us all ; not merely to claim your own 
land, and to claim your individual rights, but 
as the representatives of Freedom and the 
Free States — to reestablish over Kansas and 
Missouri Prohibition, and to save the North- 
ern States from being first deluded and 
cheated at Washington into accepting the 
Squatter Sovereignty principle in exchange 
for the Missouri Prohibition, and upon going 
to Kansas to exercise this Squatter Sover- 
eignty, being kicked out of the house by the 
Border Ruffians. 

"As there will be no want of young men and 
true, with bold hearts and strong arms, to go 
upon this enterprise, so we trust there will be 
no want of money, which is at once the sinew 
of war and the stimulus of peaceful occupa- 
tions. Those of us who are too old to go, or 
are detained here by indissoluble ties' or other 
duties, can freely contribute not only to the 
general funds of the various emigrant aid 
societies, but to the private outfit of worthy 
men qualified to make good citizens in Kansas. 

"Above all, let there be no lack of arms, 
and those of the most efficient sort. Plenty* 
of arms and plenty of men to use them are the 
only guarantee against the massacre and ex- 
pulsion before the summer is over of the free 
State men now in Kansas. Nothing but 
their Sharpe's rifles and their courage pre 
vented the massacre aud expulsion of the 
Lawrence men last winter." — From {he Beta 
York Daily Tribune of March 7, 1858. 

"But the mischief that is brewing is not. 
alone in Kansas. There are dee»>-laid plots 
of treason to freedom consummating in 
Washington. The arch disunionist, Jeffer- 
son Davis, who signalized his career in the 
Senate of the United States by advocating 
an overthrow of the Government in case all 
of our California acquisition below 36° 30' 
was not surrendered to Slavery by special 
stipulation, aspires to the post of Command- 
er-in-Chief of the Army. He is Mr. Pierce's 
Secretary of War, and a leading man in the 
Cabinet. Should he achieve his objtct, all 
that we know of his antecedents leads us to 
believe that he would not hesitate to use his 
influence to spread Slavery in the West and 
North at the point of the bayonet, and if at- 
tempts were made to resist it in any effective 
manner, he would exert all his power to sub- 
vert the Government. The Free States are 
surrounded by plots and toils and complica- 
tions, in respect to the subjugation of this 
Government by the slave-holders, of which 
the people little' dream. We are approaching 
the crisis which will decide whether Slavery 
or Freedom is to mold the destinies of Amer- 
ica." — From the New York Tribune of April, 



FAV0E3 Secession and urges peaceful 

SEPARATION. 

"When the South began to speak in earnest 
about Secession, and the establishment of a 
Southern Confederacy, Mr. Greeley did not 
dissuade them, but gave them encouraging 
"aid and comfort," as will be seen by the 
following extracts from his paper : 

" As to Secession, I have said repeatedly, and 
here repeat, that, if the People of the 
Slave States, or of the Cotton States 
alone, really wish to get out of the 
Union, 1 AM IN FAVOR OF LETTING 
THEM OUT, as soon as that result can be 
peacefully and constitutionally attained. But 
their case cannot be so urgent as to require 
that the President and bis subordinates 
should perjure themselves in deference to its 
requirements. It they will only be patient, 
trot rush to seizing Federal forts, arsenals, 
arms, and sub-treasuries, but take, first, delib- 
erately, a fair vote by ballotof their own citi- 
zens, none being coerced or intimidated, and 
that vote shall indicate a settled resolve to get 
out of the Union, I WILL DO ALL I 
CAN TO HELP THEM OUT at an early 
day."— From the New York Tribune of Janu- 
ary 24, 1861. 

" What I demand is proof that the Southern 
People really desire separation from the Free 
States. ■ Whenever assured that such ii their 
, settled wish, I SHALL JOYFULLr CO- 
' OPERATE WITH THEM TO SECURE 
THE END TEE Y SEEK. Thus far I have 
had evidence" of nothing but a purpose to 
bully and coerce the North. Many of the 
Secession emissaries to the Border Slave 
States tell the people they address that they 
do not really mean to dissolve the Union, but 
only to secure what they term their rights— in 
the Union. Now, as nearly all the people 
of the Slave States either are, or seem to be, in 
favor of this, the present menacing front of 
Secession proves nothing to the purpose. 
Maryland and Virginia have no idea of break- 
ing up the Union, but they would both dearly 
like to bully the North into a compromise. 
Their Secession demonstrations prove just 
this, and nothing more." — From the New 
York Tribune of January 21, 1861. 

" We have steadfastly affirmed and upheld 
Mr. Jefferson's doctrine, embodied in the 
Declaration of American Independence, of 
the Right of Revolution. We have insisted 
that where this right is asserted, and its ex- 
ercise is properly attempted, it ought not to 
be necessary to subject all concerned to the 
woes and horrors of civil war. In other 
words, what one party has a right to do, an- 
other can have no right to resist. And we 
have urged that, had the great mass of the 
Southern People really desired a dissolution of 
the Union, and been willing to exercise a rea- 
sonable patience, their end might have been at- 

rtfd without devastation and carnage: for 

WE, with thousands more in the "North, 

would have done all in our power to 

incline our fellow-citizens to defer 

their request and let them go in 



PEACE. Hence we have contended that the 
violent, terrorist, outrageous proceedings of 
the Southern- Jacobins — their seizure of the 
National forts, armories, arsenals, sub-treas- 
uries, &c, culminating in the bombardment 
of Fort Sumter — were not inexcusable in 
themselves, but signally calculated to de- 
feat the end they professed to have in 
view. Take the case of our own Pacific Em- 
pire as a further illustration. No doubt, the 
People of California and Oregon are to day 
loyal and fervent in their devotion to the 
Union. But they are mainly natives of the 
Atlantic or Gulf States — ' bone of our bone 
and flesh of our flesh * — and their loy- 
alty is a matter of education, of feeling, 
and of habit. Fifty years hence, when our 
Pacific coast shall have a population of ten 
or twelve millions, mainly born on that slope, 
it will be very different. Now, should the 
time arrive in our day when the great body 
of the Peopie of our Pacific States shall say 
deliberately, kindly, firmly, ro those this side 
of the Rocky Mountains, 'You are stronger 
than we — older, more wealthy, more power- 
ful — but we ask you to let us go; for we believe 
we can do better by ourselves than with you-*- 
WE shall respond, and urge others to respond, 
'Go in peace, and Heaven's blessing attend you.' 
We believe that is the right, the wise, the 
Christian answer to such a request, and that 
the world will yet percieve and recognize the 
truth."— From the New York Tribune of May 
14, 1862. 

But when the North rose up in arms Mr. 
Greeley then asserted : "The Union can not 
be dissolved." He was also ferocious iu his 
denunciations against the very people for 
whom he had expressed so much sympathy, 
as passages like the following show : 

" We hold traitors responsible for the work 
upon which they have precipitated us, and 
we warn them that they must abide the full 
penalty. * * * The rebels of that State 
(Virginia) and Maryland may not flatter 
themselves that they can enter upon a war 
against the Government and afterwards re- 
turn to quite and peaceful homes. They 
choose to play the part of traitors, and they 
muse suffer the penalty. The worn-out race 
of emasculated first families must give place 
to sturdier people, whose pioneers are now on 
their way to Washington, at this moment. In 
regiments. An allotment of land in Vir- 
ginia would be a fitting reward to the brave 
fellows who have gone to fight their country's 
battles." — From the JSew York Tribune' of 
April 23, 1861. 

"But nevertheless we mean to conquer 
them — not merely to defeat, but to conquer, 
to subjugate them— and we shall do this the 
most mercifully the more speedily we do it. 
But when the rebellious traitors are over- 
whelmed in the. field and scattered like leaves 
before an angry wind, it must not be to re- 
turn to peaceful and contented home. Thev 
must find poverty at their firesides, and see 
privation in the anxious eves of mothers and 
the rags of children."— From the New York. 
Tribune of May 1, 1861, 



SLAVE INSURRECTIONS— JOHN BSOWK. 

Mr. Greeley had indirectly sympathized 
with John Brown in his attempt to organize 
a negro insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and 
after the breaking out of hostilities he was 
evidently confident that the bloody scenes of 
'San Domingo were to be repeated through- 
out the South: 

" The Insurrection, so called, at Harper's 
Ferry, proves a verity. Old Brown of Osa- 
wata'ime, who was last heard of on his way 
from Missouri to Canada with a band of run- 
away slaves, now turns up in Virginia, where 
he seems to have been for some months, 
plotting and preparing for a general stam- 
pede of slaves. How he came to be in Har- 
per's Ferry, and in possession of the United 
States Armory, is not yet clear ; but he- was 
probably betrayed or exposed, and seized the 
Armory as a place of security until he could 
safely get away. The whole affair seems the 
work of a madman; but John Brown has so 
often looked death serenely in the face that 
what 6eems madness to others doubtless wore 
a different aspect to him." — From the J\ r ew 
York Tribune of October 19, 1859. 

DENMARK VESSET. 

"The narrative of Denmark Vessey's Insur- 
rection iu South Carolina, nearly forty years 
ago, which we publish t. lis morning, has at 
this time a peculiar interest. Not a paper 
comes to us from the South in which we do 
not find anxious endeavors to inculcate the 
conviction that the slaves are trustworthy, 
satisfied with their lot, ready to take arms in 
defense of the system beneath which they 
languish in bondage. Their masters declare 
that the enthusiasm of their human property 
has to be restrained, and that only the neces- 
sities of home labor prevent them from send- 
ing to the war every able-bodied slave they 
possess. Meanwhile, they organize strong 
guards, keep ever a sleepless eye on the move- 
ments of the negroes, and* punish with more 
than ordinary cruelty the smallest offenses 
against the harsh rules of the plantation. 

" The strange history of the insurrection 
referred to is lull of suggestions which show 
to the people of the SjiitU quite as clearly as 
to us ac the North how hollow aud false is all 
the boasted confidence the former express, 
and what an appalling danger lies always in 
wait at the threshold of the slaveholder. If 
there were ever nearoes who could be trusted 
by their masters, those engaged with Vessey 
in his conspiracy were they. The event 
showed that natural cunning,sharpened by an 
unconquerable and overpowering longing for 
freedom, was there, as it is now, more than a 
match for the vigilance of the overseer, aud 
that a seeming affection was with them but a 
cloak for concealing plots of direst vengeance. 

"The system of slavery — ever accursed — 
has not improved in these forty years. The 
hand of the taskmaster has not grown lighter, 
nor are the bonds worn with greater ease. 
Toe nature of the slave changes not, nor 
does the instinctive, God-imparted craving 



for freedom diminish in force as the years of 
toil run on. The dark storm-cloud hangs to- 
day over the South more awful in its black- 
ness than ever before, and the moment of its 
terrible descent draws nearer with each de- 
velopment in the rapid course of passing . 
events. The slave-holder, whether on foe 
plantation or in the populous city, knows this 
well, and writhes beneath the knowledge 
with a dreary anxiety which no bravado can 
conceal. If the tempest does not break in 
frightful power it will be only because an 
arm mightier than the arm of man is out- 
stretched to restrain it."— From the New York 
Tribune of May 21, 1861. 

EFFECT OF EMANCIPATION. 

"There are three and a half millions of 
slaves and half million of free blacks in the 
rebel States. Here are four of the nine mil- 
lions now ruled by Jeff. Davis— is it, can it 
be, pretended that these will be set against 
us by the proclamation of freedom? Surely 
not. 

"But the whites of the South, it is said, will 
hate and fight us worse than they have 
done. How can they? It was not this 
policy which impelled to the slaughter of the 
Massachusetts volunteers in the streets of 
Baltimore. It was not this policy which led 
the rebel soldiery encamped at Bull Run last 
winter to make riugs and other triukets of 
the bones of our slaughtered brethren, dug 
up for the purpose. It was not this which 
induced the rebels iu Arkansas to'shoot our 
scalded and shrieking soldiers in White 
River, disabled aud mortally hurt by the ex- 
plosion of the steam-chest ml their vessel by 
a cannon shot. Nor was it the policy which 
sent John Bell, Alex. H. Stephens, Thomas 
A. R. Nelson, and so many other vehement 
Unionists of two years since over to the re- 
bellion, and silenced all open repugnance to 
Disunion in the revolted States." — From the 
New York Daily Tribune, January 1, 1863. 

RECALLING SAN DOMINGO. 

"It has been estimated that in fifty years 
the extreme Southern States will contain a 
vast population of slaves, far exceeding the 
whites who own them. How does any man 
suppose that these dozen million or so of 
slaves can be kept in subjection under such 
circumstances? It is folly to think of it. 
They will theu have gained a vast addition 
to their present average of intelligence; the 
dangerous admixture of white blood will be 
infused among them in greater proportion, 
and not all the troops that can be raised aud 
brought to the field will be sufficient to sub- 
due tliem. On this head read the lesson of 
St. Domingo. When the blacks there rose 
upon their masters the proportion between 
the two was as 500,000 to 50,000. The whites 
were driven from the country with horrible 
cruelties, the natural revenge of a servile and 
oppressed race. Powerful armies were sent 
against these revolted slaves, millions upon 
millions were spent for their subjugation, 
but in vain. A Negro State now occupies 
the loveliest, and most fertile of the Antilles, 



and by a natural sentiment of jealousy, no 
white "is permitted to become a citizen of the 
country. 

"A similar fate awaits the southern ex- 
tremity of the United States unless the whites 
are wise betimes. There is no alternative 
between emancipation under some form and 
a servile revolt. Sooner or later it must 
come, and let those supporters of slavery who 
are most competent judge whether half a cen- 
tury is too soon for its arrival. 

"Free the blacks, or in time they will ter- 
ribly free themselves. Men cannot be made 
chattels forever — it is unsafe to suppose it. 
The negroes of South Carolina and Missis- 
sippi may be docile, and submissive now, but 
they will not be so always. That is a fatal 
delusion that cannot be too soon abandoned." 
—From the New York Tribune of May 8. 

MAKING ALLIES. 

"Four Millions of sturdy bondmen, nearly 
all residents of the Rebel States, stand wait- 
ing and wondering what is to be their part in 
this contest, what their ad vantage therefrom. 
They form the majority of the people of South 
Carolina and nearly or quite a majority of 
those of the several other revolted States. 
They are about one-third of the population 
of Jeff. Davis' dominion. Their interest in 
the struggle is practical— vary practical in- 
deed. They want many things, but, before 
all else, Liberty. They are willing to work 
for it, run for it, fight for it, die for it. There 
can not be a rational doubt of the ability of 
the Government to enlist the sympathies and 
the efforts of these Four Millions of Jeff's 
subjects on the side of the Union by simply 
promising them Freedom. Talk of confisca- 
tion does not move them, for it involves the 
idea of — to their minds, at least — of deporta- 
tion and sale to new masters. Talk of con- 
fiscating, or even freeing, those only who 
have been employed in the rebel armies, does 
not much effect them; for it seems partial, 
timid, aud selfish. But say to them that all 
whose masters are involved In the rebellion 
shall be Free, and they will feel that their 
day is at length dawning. They will not 
hasten to throw away their lives by mad, 
senseless insurrections; but they will watch 
for opportunities to escape and come within 
our liues, bringing information certainly, and 
perhaps arms or other material aid. And the 
bare fact that their slaves are watching their 
chances to get away and over to the Union 
side, will immensely weaken the rebels." — 
Fom the New York Tribune of December 11, 
1861. 

SUSTAINING BUTLER. 

Mr. Greeley appeared to entertain an es- 
special antipathy against the ladies of the 
South, and when General Butler's New Or- 
leans order was made the subject of general 
comment at home and abroad, it was thus 
defended in the Tribune: 

" Jeff. Davis has said, in a proclamation, 
that ' the soldiers of the United States have 
been invited and encouraged in general 



orders to insult and outrage the wives, the 
mothers, and the sisters of cur citizens.' 

" This is a very wicked falsehood. It was 
by the ' wives,' ' mothers,' and ' sisters' afore- 
said that the insults were given; it was by 
the 'soldiers of the United States' that they 
were received. No single instance is given 
in which a woman in Louisiana tas been 
wantonly insulted by a Union soldier. But 
it was a part of the regular tactics of the se- 
cessionists of New Orleans to incite their 
women to insult our unoffeuding soldiers 
there by every kind of contemptuous, pro- 
voking grimace, jeer, and gesture, trusting 
to their petticoats for impunity. When he 
had borne quite enough of this General But- 
ler brought it to a sudden and full stop by 
the following order: 

" ' Headq'rs Department of the Gulf, 
"May 15, 1862. 

"•'As the officers and the soldiers of the 
United States have been subject to repeated 
insults from women calling themselves 
'Ladies of New Orleans,' in return for the 
most scrupulous non-interference and cour- 
tesy on our part, it is ordered hereafter when 
any female shall, by word, gesture, or move- 
ment, insult or show contempt forany officer 
or soldier of the United States, she shall be 
regarded and held liable to be treated as a 
woman of the town plying her vocation. 

" 'By command of Maj. Gen. Butler. 

" 'Geo. C. Strong, A. A. G.' 

"We hold this order most righteous, timely, 
and wise. The woman who seeks to attract 
special attention in public of men who are 
utter strangers to her fixes her own position. 
General Butler did but state truly what that 
position is. If a rebel army should occupy 
thiscitv, and our own women did not refrain 
from hissing, floutiug, and spitting at the 
soldiers, we would justify their General in 
issuing just such a proclamation as General 
Butler's. No human being has been harmed 
in mind, body, or estate by it, and the abuse 
at which it was aimed was wholly and in- 
stantly corrected- by it. All that Jeff, really 
has to complain of is that his women can. uo 
longer insult our soldiers with impunity."— 
From the New York Tribune of December 29, 
1862. 

A Paris correspondent of the Tribune, who 
had expressed the public sentiment of Europe 
concerning General Butler's order, was thus 
rebuked: 

"It is a curious instance of how much a 
man of sound common sense may be biased 
by a popular clamor to see on how wide a 
tangent our lively Paris correspondent flies 
off at the mere mention of General Butler's 
proclamation to the ill-bred women of New 
Orleans. He, in common with all indignant 
members of Parliament and the English 
press, is determined to believe that General 
Butler's intention was to give official notice 
of the arrival of that moment anxiously in- 
quired for by one of the ladies in ' Don Juan' 
when the whole city was to be given up to 
extreraest license. We are nobsurpriaed at this 



in English journals; indeed, their malice is 
not capable of any invention that can aston- 
ish us; and we do nut doubt, as they insist 
upon it we are under the dominion of mob- 
law, that the President's late visit to West 
Point, when heard of in Europe, will be rep- 
resented as necessarily made in secret to es- 
cape assassination. Should our Paris corre- 
spondent lend a willing ear to a calumny so 
outrageous as this, and yet so likely to be 
made, it would hardly surprise us more than 
that he should be the dupe of the silly outcry 
against General Butler."— From the JSew 
York Tribune, June 27, 1862. 



SECOND SOBER THOUGHT. 

Years afterward Mr. Greeley's " sober sec- 
ond thought" approved General Butler's 
order in the following editorial articles: 

"One thing, however, we confess, surprises 
us. If the little dogs consider General But- 
ler to be the most contemptible of mankind, 
it is very strange that by their conspicuous 
and constant enmity they should insist upon 
elevating him to a position of first-rate pub- 
lic importance. Some of the gentle- voiced 
damsels of the South who thought that a na- 
tion could be scolded into existence and per- 
petuity, nick-named. General Butler 'the 
Beast;' and if they found any satisfaction in 
this spirit of feminine vehemence, we dare 
say the General had no objection to their 
amusing themselves in their own natural 
way at a time when restraint upon their 
tongues might have resulted in mortal in- 
ward agitations. It is true that the sensitive 
creatures were not allowed to insult Union 
soldiers in the street, but how they must have 
chattered and chided in the privacy of the 
boudoir 1 How particular they must have 
grown in their zoological classification, se- 
lecting those animals which were their pet 
aversions, or which they regarded with re- 
spectful timidity, and applying their names 
to the unfortunate major general! We 
shouldn't wonder if in this way poor Butler 
was sometimes likened to a rhinocerous. or 
perhaps a hippopotamus! Fortunately if 
these indignities were ever inflicted, they did 
not come to his ears. They might have 
broken his heart. 

"The Government confided to General 
Butler a somewhat thankless task— the restor- 
ation of law and order in a city not particu- 
larly law-abiding and orderly in the best of 
times, and at that critical moment full of des- 
perate adventurers and turbulent ruffians 
who, for months, had been unchecked in their 
career of licentiousness and brutal audacity 
Tlxe service was undertaken, and no man can 
say without falsehood that it was not per- 
formed with all possible consideration for the 
feelings of the peaceable citizens, and with, 
out any consideration whatever for the feel- 
ings of the openly traitorous, the secretly 
knavish, and the impudenUy violent. It was 
impossible for General Butler to please those 
who persisted in ealling themselves ' a con- 
quered people.' It was equally impossible 
for him to please those Northern sympathi- 
zers who were sorry that New Orleans had 
i£len into our hands at all."— Frofi the Veto 
•f^ 3 ' Daily Tribune, August 28, 1868. 



ANOTHER ENDORSEMENT. 

"The hearty, emphatic good will where- 
with General Butler is regarded by the great 
mass of the loyal upholders of our country's 
integrity in her late struggle, rests on very 
intelligible grounds. They like him for rea- 
sons identical with those which impel the 
rebels and pro-rebels to hate him so intensely. 
Though his military career was not in all re- 
spects brilliant, and though a part of it sub- 
jected him to the unflattering ciiticism of 
General Grant, it is certain that the expedi- 
tion to Ship Island and New Orleans was 
substantially projected and executed by him, 
and that its success gave the Rebellion the 
heaviest and most damaging blow that it re- 
ceived during the first two years of the war. 
In wresting irrevocably from the Confeder- 
acy its most wealthy and populous city, its 
commercial focus and storehouse, General 
Butler did it greater material and moral 
damage than it received at Donelson, Shiloh, 
Antietam, or Murfreesborough. 

"But it is not the material value of his mil- 
itary services that has most commended the 
elder of the Massachusetts major generals to 
the popular heart. The masses recognize 
and admire in him the first leader of our 
forces who evinced a clear comprehension of 
the nature and animus of the rebellion, and 
the ability and will to deal with them as 
they deserve!. Up to the outbreak of this 
war General Butler had, through life, been 
the political intimate and ally of 'the Chiv- 
alry,' and understood them lim a brother. 
He comprehended from the start that their 
preposterous assumptions of social superior- 
ity must be met at the threshold, and utterly 
defied and trampled on. 

"His polite but firm refusal at an early day 
to return Major Cary's fugitive negroes, on 
the just and solid ground that they were 
'contraband of war,' like horses or intrench- 
ing tools, showed him the man for the occa- 
sion. His stern dealings with the New Or- 
leans gambler who tore down the American 
flag after it had been hoisted by our 
forces over a city fairly wou by their 
valor, and his famous 'Order No. 28,' 
advising the she-secesh of that city that they 
could no longer wantonly insult our soldiers 
with impunity, were moral victories for the 
Union arms of signal value and promise. 
They made plain t j the most stolid apprehen- 
sion the fact that territory fairly recovered 
from the rebellion was no longer a part of the 
Confederacy, and could not be used for thc- 
prosecution of its warfare, at least while 
under the command of General But- 
ler. That the Rebels should hiss and 
howl, foam and rave whenever aud 
wherever they might safely do so, was a 
matter of course; that they should accuse the 
man they so detested of stealing the spoons 
.they never had, was paltry, if you will, but 
very human. Weil might they set a price on 
could not match — a head illuminated by eyes 
the head so prolific of devices which they 
which they could execrate aud caricature as 
malformed and hideous, but which they 
could not curse into blindness to any of their 
traitorous plots or contrivances." — From the 
JV:w York Tribune, November 6, 1863. 



SOW HE SLANDERED SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS. 

"To 'love rum and hate niggers' basso long 
been the essence of the Democratic faith that 
the cooler, wiser heads of the party vainly 
spend their strength in efforts to lift it out of 
the rut in which they plainly see that it can 
only run to perdition. While Slavery en- 
dured negro hate was an element of positive 
strength in our political contests, so that the 
Constitutional Conventions of this and other 
free States were usually carried by the Dem- 
ocrats on the strength of appeals to the 
coarser and baser whites to 'let the nigger 
knowhisplace.'"— Tribune, April!, 1871. 

Mr. Greeley was an early denunciator of 
the Kuklux demonstrations, and while urg- 
ing their suppression by martial law, he did 
not lose sight of his Protection theory. 

THE KUKLUX KLAN. 

"The present Kuklux demonstrations at 
the South are simply a mere cowardly phase 
of the Rebellion. They are a fulfillment of 
the Rebel menace that the civil war could 
and should be prosecuted for twenty years 
after the overthrow and dispersion of the 
Rebel armies. Its object is to ' let the nigger 
knowhisplace,' which, now as ever, in the 
Rebel conception, is under the heel of the 
white man. 

"Until this skulking warfare with masks, 
instead of banners and torches in place of 
grenades, shall have been somehow termi- 
nated, the Republican party can not chauge 
its attitude, noi can it give that attention 
and emphasis to questions of political econ- 
omy and finance which the public good im- 
peratively requires. Pledged by all its glo- 
rious past to inflexible and paramount fidelity 
to the rights of man, it can not while these 
are assailed and imperiled devote much at- 
tention to the policy of raising or lowering 
the imposts now payable on the importation 
of iron, or fabrics, or sugar. And, in the 
absence of such attention, there is great 
danger that unwise and injurious changes in 
the tariff may be made, which, if their na- 
ture and bearings were fully understood, 
would be condemned and defeated." — From 
the New York Tribune of March 11, 1871. 

THE KUKLUX AND THE COMING ELECTION. 

"That men are daily killed throughout 
most of the Southern States, because they 
are Republicans, is just as sure as the fact 
that those States were lately the arena of a 
great civil war. There has been not less 
than five thousand negroes killed because of 
their color and their politics in these States 
since General Grant's election; and not one 
white Southron has been punished for such 
murder. Nay, the brutal murderer of a white 
military officer at Vicksburg, Miss., walks 
the streets of that city as freely and proudly 
as though he were the hero of some great 
Confederate victory. 

"Gentlemen opposite! we respectfully 
warn you that you are making up a record 
that will expose you to a fearful judgment 
in the next Presidential election. The people 
of the United States do not believe in whole- 



sale assassination as a political maneuver, 
and will uphold no party that resorts to it. 
You may carry most of the intervening elec- 
tions, when the issue is not distinctly and 
vigorously pressed home upon the masses, 
but, when we come to 1872, you will as- 
suredly be beaten by the votes of men who 
are not politicians and are now not voting at 
all. We shall only have to drive home the 
facts which prove your complicity in the 
crimes now convulsing the South, and you 
will inevitaoly go under. If you succeed in 
defeating legislation to protect the loyal men 
of the South from the crimes to which they are 
now exposed and subjected, your fourth suc- 
cessive discomfiture iii a Presidential struggle 
will be signal and conclusive." — From the 
New York Tribune of March 1-1, 1871. 

Mr. Greeley continued up to the spring 
of the present year to urge the punishment 
of those who had been arrested by the Fed- 
eral authorities as connected with the Ku- 
klux demonstrations. The following article ' 
is but one of many of a similar import : 

"The Kuklux trials which have just been 
concluded at Columbia, S. C, reveal a social 
condition in that State, which shows how low 
down are still the poor whites, whose pov- 
erty and ignorance were part of the slave 
svstem. These trials showed too, how the 
vindictive hatred of freedom -still clings to 
the higher classes of the South, and how 
easy His for the ex-slaveholder to turn his 
oppression of the black man agaiust the low 
class which befriended him or hesitates to 
jo>n in organized society to drive him out. 
Nobody can say that these trials have not 
been fairly conducted. The prisoners were 
defended by such eminent legal counsel as 
the Hon. Henry Stan bery, ex- Attorney Gen- 
eral of the United States, and the Hon. Rev- 
erdy Johnson. But the testimony brought 
out overwhelmed all argument, and forty- 
seven of these wretches confessed then 
crimesin open court, six othera were con- 
victed, and seveuty-two indictment, embrac- 
ing over five hundred persons, were found. 
The story of brutality, crime, violence, and 
moral degradation made up from the revela- 
tions of the witnesses is too revolting for re- 
cital; it is a dark chapter in the history of 
civilization; it is a burning disgrace to the 
partv which organized the conspiracy, aided 
and abetted its agents, and did its best to 
suppress the evidence now published to the 
world." — From the New York Tribune oj Jartr 
vary 10, 1872. 

So might the record be continued through 
almost couutless pages of the same sort of 
innuendo, accusation, slander, and libel. 
These things establish the aptness of an epi- 
gram once launched against him by one, now 
a leading admirer, which runs in this wise— 

"HORACE GREELEY, 

FOUNDER OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE, 

FIBST IN FEACE ; LAST IN WAR ; AND LEAST 

IN TEE iSeaETS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." 



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